New Delhi has revealed Berlin has pledged to massively increase the number of visas issued annually to skilled Indian workers
Germany is to increase its annual visa quota for skilled workers from India from 20,000 to 90,000, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has revealed. In India, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has named medical and nursing care, as well as IT, as the sectors where labor is particularly welcome.
Scholz, accompanied by several ministers and business representatives, arrived in New Delhi late on Thursday for a three-day visit. The following day, the German head of government held extensive talks with his Indian counterpart, signing a number of agreements.
The chancellor said that “good progress” is being made in terms of drawing from the Indian workforce, and that Berlin is aiming to “enthuse even more skilled workers from your country for Germany.”
Modi, in turn, announced that the European economic powerhouse would more than quadruple the number of visas issued each year to skilled Indian workers, from 20,000 to 90,000.
Scholz also said that he was “in particular advocating an ambitious free-trade agreement between India and the European Union,” which would be highly beneficial for both parties.
In a separate development last month, Israel launched a program aimed at attracting 10,000 Indian construction workers, on top of a similar number already employed in the country. The push came after New Delhi and West Jerusalem sealed an agreement in May 2023, under which a total of 42,000 Indian workers were to be invited to work in Israel’s construction and nursing sectors.
An economic forecast presented to India’s parliament in July indicated that the country’s economy was likely to grow by somewhere between 6.5% and 7% during the current financial year, and by around 7% per annum going forward. This assessment was generally in line with projections issued by most global credit-rating agencies.
Having overtaken the UK in the rankings of the biggest global economies in 2022, India is currently the fifth largest in the world and is also among the fastest growing. It is expected to outpace Germany and Japan to become the third-largest economy by the end of the decade.
However, despite these overall positive trends, Indian workers are being enticed to emigrate by higher pay, especially in the UAE, Western European countries and the US.
Another major issue faced by India is the fact that only 51% of the country’s young people are considered employable, with others lacking the necessary skills, the parliamentary report pointed out.
